If I park in a spot without paying the meter and get a ticket? I'll pay it with no qualms.
If I park within 15 ft of a crosswalk or in 4 ft of a driveway and get a ticket? I'll be wiser next time and pay the ticket.
Basically, if I do something wrong, screw up and break the law, I'll suffer the consequences. I can live with that. I mean, you can't just have people staying in a metered spot for hours monopolizing a prime parking area.
Recently though I feel like these parking checkers (meter maids? ruthless bandits?) are taking things too far. This past summer I had paid for my vehicle registration and was waiting and waiting for the little sticker to come in the mail for me to put on my plates. Three days before the sticker arrived in the mail a parking checker wrote me a ticket for "improperly displayed vehicle registration." What?! Are you serious? I can't display my vehicle registration sticker if it hasn't come in the mail yet! That's a $20 ticket...on top of the $20 wheel tax that every vehicle registered in Milwaukee has to pay when you register your vehicle. Ridiculous. And apparently this isn't a common thing. Just this past week this article ran in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel about certain areas being more prone to tickets than others. Unsurprisingly, I live in one of those areas but the fifth most written citation is improperly displayed vehicle registration and the officer who wrote my citation ranked third for most citations issued in a six-month period. I am disputing this citation, this is a crazy thing to be able to write a ticket for!
In the last week I have gotten three citations, one that I rightfully earned but the other two I feel are unjustified.
To park on the street in Milwaukee you need a night time parking permit and a daytime parking permit. Last December I went down to the courthouse to get a new residential parking permit because my old one was expiring soon. I was there just after midnight and the officer on duty didn't give a lot of daytime permits out (odd period to renew a permit but you don't have to worry about the meter running that late at night!) so she may not have known exactly what to do. I had my $10 ready, she told me "it's actually free now!" and I got my permit. Fast forward nine months: I'm parked in my typical spot across from my apartment building and find a citation on the car. Violation of Residential Parking Permit Program. "What's this?" I say to myself, "I have a residential parking permit." So I photocopy my permit, the citation, and fax it in to the city. A few days later I get a letter in the mail thanking me for my payment but saying that I still owe money...the same amount that the citation was for. The same day I get another citation for the same violation. I figure no big deal, someone obviously can't see my permit sitting on my dashboard. I call the city up and it turns out that I actually don't have a residential parking permit, I have a commuter permit. Why would I have a commuter permit? I live here! I park across from my building, in the same spot, with the same people everyday. I'm not sure of a way to dispute these tickets but I am pretty upset that I did not have the permit I used to / received the wrong ticket. I mean, I've been parking under a certain assumption (that I received the permit I asked for) for the last nine months without error, I didn't have any reason to think that trend would not continue.
The most recent citation I deserved. I broke a law (no parking during street cleaning) and my vehicle was issued a citation and then towed to the city impound lot. My fault, my mistake, I'll pay the price ($145, ow) to get it back. At least I wasn't the only one! But you know what the silly part of this all was? My truck was towed but the street wasn't even cleaned.
Like I said, I have no problem admitting when something was my mistake and I screwed up but parking citations that are unjustified make me very upset. I'm pretty sure my alderman was voted in because he said that he would decrease the amount of parking citations written (who knows if he actually had that power) but it's only gotten worse. And for a city that ranks 4th poorest in the nation? We can't afford all these fines, things are out of control. I need a way to put a stop to it but how many letters to my alderman do I need to write before something happens?
To park on the street in Milwaukee you need a night time parking permit and a daytime parking permit. Last December I went down to the courthouse to get a new residential parking permit because my old one was expiring soon. I was there just after midnight and the officer on duty didn't give a lot of daytime permits out (odd period to renew a permit but you don't have to worry about the meter running that late at night!) so she may not have known exactly what to do. I had my $10 ready, she told me "it's actually free now!" and I got my permit. Fast forward nine months: I'm parked in my typical spot across from my apartment building and find a citation on the car. Violation of Residential Parking Permit Program. "What's this?" I say to myself, "I have a residential parking permit." So I photocopy my permit, the citation, and fax it in to the city. A few days later I get a letter in the mail thanking me for my payment but saying that I still owe money...the same amount that the citation was for. The same day I get another citation for the same violation. I figure no big deal, someone obviously can't see my permit sitting on my dashboard. I call the city up and it turns out that I actually don't have a residential parking permit, I have a commuter permit. Why would I have a commuter permit? I live here! I park across from my building, in the same spot, with the same people everyday. I'm not sure of a way to dispute these tickets but I am pretty upset that I did not have the permit I used to / received the wrong ticket. I mean, I've been parking under a certain assumption (that I received the permit I asked for) for the last nine months without error, I didn't have any reason to think that trend would not continue.
The most recent citation I deserved. I broke a law (no parking during street cleaning) and my vehicle was issued a citation and then towed to the city impound lot. My fault, my mistake, I'll pay the price ($145, ow) to get it back. At least I wasn't the only one! But you know what the silly part of this all was? My truck was towed but the street wasn't even cleaned.
Like I said, I have no problem admitting when something was my mistake and I screwed up but parking citations that are unjustified make me very upset. I'm pretty sure my alderman was voted in because he said that he would decrease the amount of parking citations written (who knows if he actually had that power) but it's only gotten worse. And for a city that ranks 4th poorest in the nation? We can't afford all these fines, things are out of control. I need a way to put a stop to it but how many letters to my alderman do I need to write before something happens?
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